My Trips: Kintamani and Mount Batur at North Bali, Indonesia

Monday, June 28, 2010

Kintamani and Mount Batur at North Bali, Indonesia

"Kintamani is the most favorite tourist destinations in Bali with the active volcano of mount Batur and beautiful lake. Kintamani is surrounded by the captivating nature and there are six ancient villages around cauldron of Batur Lake which is often conceived by Bali Age Village. The local people from these Bali Age villages own the unique cultures, houses and life style. Kintamani Area is consisted of some Villages those are Kedisan Village , Buahan, Abang, Trunyan, Songan, South Batur, Middle Batur, North Batur, Sukawana and Kintamani Village . The total of resident in these area are about 15 thousand who are mostly working as farmer, merchant, or work at industrial tourism." Source from here.

Kintamani (S8 16.614 E115 21.051) is located at the north of the Bali Island. The entrance fee was rp22,000.00 for the 6 adults and 2 children. We decided to view the Volcano Mount Batur at one of the restaurant named 'Grand Puncak Sari' (S8 16.352 E115 20.839).

"Mount Batur (Gunung Batur) is an active volcano located at the center of two concentric calderas north west of Mount Agung, Bali, Indonesia. The south east side of the larger 10×13 km caldera contains a caldera lake. The inner 7.5-kilometer-wide caldera, which was formed during emplacement of the Bali (or Ubud) ignimbrite, has been dated at about 23,670 and 28,500 years ago." Source from Wiki.

Grand Puncak Sari Hotel and Restaurant

The Grand Puncak Sari Restaurant is located about 700 meter from the entrance of Kintamani. The restaurant dining area are divided into indoor and outdoor 2 session. They are serving buffet lunch while we arrived, but we already had our lunch at Warung Ibu Oka and we just intend for a drink. So we ONLY allow to sit indoor where the outdoor session (better view of Mount Batur) is for customers who order the food! That's normal, don't worry! :)

The outdoor session of Grand Puncak Sari Restaurant

The indoor area of Grand Puncak Sari Restaurant

This was the first time I tasted the Bali Coffee! Hmm...taste nice!

The Bali Coffee - rp.6,500.00 (MYR2.50 / USD0.75)

I did check the altitude of the restaurant was 1360 meter from Garmin etrex HCX GPS device.

The GPS device shows altitude at 1360meter

Some photos of the Breathtaking view of Mount Batur and the Batur Lake...

The Mount (Gunung) Batur Volcano of Bali

You can see the Lava clearly from this photo above

Lake Batur from far away...

Too bad the summit of Mount Batur was covered with thick clouds...
The weather at Kintamani is cooling, temperature was around 23C-26C. I can imagine how nice if we put a night at the Hotel here...but beside enjoy the cool air at night, there might not have other activity. Quite boring...

We were off from the restaurant after 30 minutes rest, and still looking for a better viewing area for the Volcano...and we found this! About 2.5km East from the restaurant (S8 16.972 E115 21.867). The view was much better! And the area we stand were closer to the Lake Batur.